The long-running legal dispute between the Montezuma County commissioners and a corporation wanting to build a Dollar General store is not over yet.
On July 16, Leaf Properties, the Georgia-based corporation seeking to construct the store, filed a notice of appeal with the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Leaf Properties owns the roughly four-acre parcel in question at the corner of Highway 145 and County Road N. The corporation’s CEO is Douglas Kinsey.
The county commissioners twice voted, both times 2-1, to deny the company’s application for a high-impact permit.
Leaf Properties appealed the rejections.
On July 8, 22nd Judicial District Judge Todd Plewe upheld the county’s denial of the permit.
In his ruling, Plewe wrote that most of the commission’s reasons for turning down the application were insufficient. However, he said that concerns about the possibility that traffic generated by the store would make the intersection dangerous were sufficient for denying the application.
In the notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals, attorneys for the applicant reiterated their arguments that the store is a “use by right” because it is on land zoned commercial, and that the county’s high-impact review process lacks specificity.
They also say the evidence upon which Plewe based his finding was “unsubstantiated complaints from the public” about traffic impacts.
They wrote that one of the issues the appeals court should consider was, “Whether the Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners’ denial of the Application was supported by competent evidence, where the only evidence in support of the denial that the District Court found to be competent was unsubstantiated complaints from the public regarding the adequacy of a nearby intersection to accommodate traffic impacts from the applicant’s project.”
It is expected to take some time for the Court of Appeals to make any decision about the case.
